


you have to remember

by PenelopeJadewing



Series: fictober 2018 [14]
Category: Naruto, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Character Study, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Not Really Character Death, just a nightmare, mentions of others - Freeform, not really - Freeform, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 18:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeJadewing/pseuds/PenelopeJadewing
Summary: “I’m…” He blinks when she lets go of his hand and he almost panics at the overwhelming wave of Alone that washes over him, makes his hair stand on end. She’s gone… she’s disappeared. And… dark lumps lie strewn across the floor now, the light streaming in from outside colder, bluer now than before. Sunset is over; night has come.He can smell it now. He can hear its breath.Death is in the room.“Remember!” Her voice echoes, ricochets over his head. “Please, remember so you can wake up!”





	you have to remember

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely happy with this one but... it’s all I could think of. 
> 
> I find I write in a very clipped fashion when I’m trying to make the atmosphere tenser, especially in a dreamscape sequence... Whether it’s ever successful or not, I have no idea. TuT Oh well.

He’s… where… is he?

The open side of a rolling hill stretches off on either side of him, grass tall and rippling like ocean waves in a gentle wind he can’t seem to feel. He watches the waves rush away from him, racing one another over smaller crests of prairie grass and wildflowers, to the clustered tops of the forest below. The wind makes no sound—no hush of the grass, whisper of leaves, the roll of clouds overhead. No, all is… silent. Achingly silent.

The boy sits alone on the hillside. Breeze at his back, knees hugged to his chest. His long hair plays at his neck, caresses his cheeks.

 _Where is Kisame?_  he wonders.

…who  _is Kisame?_ The name lingers in his mind like he should know who it belongs to… but there’s nothing. Nothing but empty field, silent nature. Dead.

Beyond the woods, he can see a town. No, a city… it’s bigger than it should be at this distance. He can see the windows on the closest buildings clearly. Can count the lightning rods on the rooftops. With hawk’s eyes, he soars over them, taking in broad, empty streets… he can feel it’s emptiness. It’s loneliness.

Poor city. It has nobody to live in it.

“You should walk there,” says a voice. A little girl, fiddling with her chocolate-colored hair, is suddenly beside him. But it doesn’t scare him. No, she could never scare him. He doesn’t know how he knows this, but… he does. “I bet the city would enjoy your company.”

Yes, perhaps so. He nods his agreement and, in a blink, he’s walking its streets, those vacant streets, eyes sweeping over pristine white buildings. Empty buildings. All empty, not a single face in a window, not a single car on the streets. The traffic lights are dark. He wonders what happened here. But then, could something have really happened? Could anything truly cause such emptiness as this?

Death. Death could.

And though there are no bodies, no smells or sounds that he can detect, he gets a keen sense that he’s right. No proof to back it, no evidence of a war or plague, but he just knows. It was Death. Death came and reaped everyone here, leaving nothing behind… Every dark light, empty street corner, abandoned bicycle seems all the sadder for this revelation. Worse still, he wants to do something. Anything. To help… to fix it? But what could he do?

“Itachi…”

It’s the girl again. She waves at him from down one of the adjoining streets. Her face… he knows her somehow, truly he does. But he can’t… nothing comes to mind. No memories… no name. And since any sensible person doesn’t talk to strangers, he simply pauses in his walk to stare.

She beckons. “This way.”

He follows. He’s not sure why.

Staying a decent distance ahead, she scampers through the city, leading him around in what feels very much like circles. But the buildings keep changing… He doesn’t spot any that they’ve been past before already, so he doesn’t stop. He really has nowhere else to be. He can stay here a while… forever maybe. Where else can he go? There’s nothing around for miles. His mind tells him so.

The silent breeze is here too, in the city, weaving between the alleyways. It stirs the gutter trash, rattles street signs, tugs at electrical lines. But he still can’t hear it.

He can’t hear anything, save the beat of his own heart, and the clap of the girl’s shoes on the pavement ahead.

From around the next corner comes into view a building that’s not like the rest. The rest are plain, blank-faced, clinical like a hospital hallway and just as bone white. This one’s made of brick, taller and broader, a startling blotch of color amidst shades of grey. It’s five stories high, plus a small penthouse on top of that, with cement sills and grandiose steps leading up to a pair of glass doors at the front. There’s a sign above the door… but it’s blank.

The girl stops here. Slowly, he closes the distance between them until he’s standing just beside her. Together, they stare up at the place.

“Oh…” she murmurs. She turns her wide brown eyes on him. “You… don’t remember… do you?”

He frowns. Remember…? Is there something he’s supposed to know?

“Do you know who I am?” she asks, words quiet. Hesitant. A little scared.

He shakes his head. “No… but you seem nice. You’re not a threat.”

A threat? They’re kids. How could either of them be threats…

A shock of pain stabs through his skull, making him wince, but it’s gone immediately following. He frowns at the asphalt between his feet.

What was that?

The distress only seems to intensify on her face. “Do you… remember how you got here?”

He glances around, squinting a bit against the golden sunlight. It seems to be sometime in the evening… and he certainly doesn’t recognize any of his surroundings. Not in this strange place. Nor had he recognized the field he was in before.

“Oh,” he says, “yes. I was in a field of grass and wildflowers. Then you—”

“No, no!” She waves her hands between them, making him cease. “Do you remember how you got _here_?”

He tilts his head to one side. It’s the same question… Does she think asking it with a different inflection will make it easier to understand? How does she want him to answer?

“Do you?” he retorts, seeing as she seems to be making this difficult anyway.

She puckers her lips, pouting. Then, without another word, she scampers up the great cement steps to the brick building’s doors, and disappears inside. After a brief beat, he follows. Because he really doesn’t have anything else to do. And he doesn’t like the idea that he’s upset this strange child…

Child… he’s a child too. It’s weird to think of other kids like that… Why had he done that?

It’s dark inside the building. Vast tile floors, grey walls, no lights. The doors vanish as soon as they close behind him. He doesn’t see the girl anyway, no matter how his eyes traverse the shadows.

“Do you remember this place?” she asks, very suddenly beside him.

He doesn’t jump. Only shakes his head. “No… should I?”

“Yes.”

He blinks slowly, and looks again. Nothing changes, except some kind of front desk appears near the opposite wall, at the same time another stab of pain hits the back of his eyes. He squints against it, but still, it’s not familiar.

“Something very important happened here,” she says, not looking at him. She stares at her feet instead. He can’t see her eyes.

“It… did?”

There’s three computers on the desk now. A picture frame on the wall behind them. His headache throbs more incessantly.

“Remember,” she raises her eyes to his, and they’re crying red. Blood. “You have to remember. Or you’ll never get out of here.”

“Get…” He pauses to gasp as the pain increases. There’s a painting in the frame now—a great god of wind, cloaked in black and purple flame. That’s… that’s, he knows that thing… it’s— “G-Get out? Of where?”

“This isn’t real.” She takes his hand—her fingers are so small, so soft…—and leads him toward the desk, toward the picture and the closer it gets the harder it is to look at it. “Wake up, Itachi.”

“I am awake.” He closes his eyes, unable to keep them open any more, turns his head away from the painting. He can’t keep looking, it hurts too much. “I am!”

“You’re not. It’s time to wake up now.”

“I’m…” He blinks when she lets go of his hand and he almost panics at the overwhelming wave of Alone that washes over him, makes his hair stand on end. She’s gone… she’s disappeared. And… dark lumps lie strewn across the floor now, the light streaming in from outside colder, bluer now than before. Sunset is over; night has come.

He can smell it now. He can hear its breath.

Death is in the room.

“Remember!” Her voice echoes, ricochets over his head. “Please, remember so you can wake up!”

He glances up at the painting again, only to find the flaming god standing before him, no longer a frozen image in oils, but a tangible presence. A hot presence… burning, churning, raging, heat pulsing over him like waves, like the wind on the hillside but painful. His head hurts, hurts, pounds against his skull and he can’t make it stop. Still, something… this is something important. The smell of death, of blood, of tragedy makes him shiver and now that he’s looking the flaming god in the eye… it strikes a chord. There is… something familiar about it.

The scent of sulfur and bone.

His hand raises of its own accord, a weight gripped in his fingers that isn’t necessarily unpleasant. No, it’s familiar as well… comforting, even. His hand, older, longer now, holds the sleek, black pistol almost reverently. Without thought, he aims it—right between the flaming god’s hollow eye sockets.

The pain in his head is so intense, he can hardly see straight. Tears stream unbidden from his lashes… why? The pain, it must be the pain…

Something rips through his chest, like a great living thing full of rage and razor teeth suddenly lunged through his ribcage, and he doubles over, tastes iron, coughs up blood that spatters onto grey tile at his feet. The gun falters. The flaming god reaches for him.

“F-Father…” the word leaps from his bloodied lips unbidden. The god stops.

He remembers.

This is... Susano’o’s Hero Agency. The lumps are bodies and... he put them there. Him. Uchiha Itachi. 

Agony consumes him. It drags him through the floor, clawed hands raking his skin, his clothes, his hair, pulling his one comfort from his hands. Shadows close in on his vision, as he beholds the god before him. Except… it’s a god no longer. It’s a familiar, paternal face. It’s smiling… It’s also dead.

It… it was him. He was death. Not the flaming god. No, he is the flaming god now… the Reaper. Izanami. Murderer, maker of widows and orphans, harbinger of horror.

First and only victim of his brother, a prodigious young Hero in Training. As it should be. Yes… yes, he remembers now.

He died. Sasuke killed him.

Somehow, this makes the pain behind his eyes ease, enough for him to breathe a sigh of relief. He tilts his head back, feels the fingers raking through his hair, and allows the darkness to swallow him up.

“I’m… sorry…”

* * *

 

_The smell of antiseptic and hand sanitizor burns his nostrils. His limbs are heavy, cumbersome, his throat like sandpaper. He drags his eyelids open… and is greeted by clinical white hospital walls. The light coming through the window hurts… and despite all the competing stimuli that threatens to overwhelm, there is one scent that pervades—Death still lingers. But it is distant… retreating._


End file.
